The Buzz

Promoting a book may seem like the most self-centered, assholish experience ever. All you are doing is talking about you, your book, and why people should buy it. You are spamming everyone on every social media platform with your announcement. You also expect/want to see instantaneous results from the project that you poured your soul into--so why not spam every single person that you have access to? Because it’s annoying and makes you an asshole. Marketing a new book takes time. You can’t spam your Twitter, FaceBook, and Tumblr for 24 hours and expect your book to become a bestseller. It is a gradual process that you have to keep at for months after your book is published. So here are a few tips on how not be an asshole while marketing your book.

Be Authentic--Be yourself. You don’t have to be a certain person to be successful. Social media helps connect the readers to the writer. And writers who let their personalities show on social media are more likely to have more followers.

Don’t Overdo It and Don’t Be Pushy--It may be hard not to use every social media platform to spam every single one of your followers, but you need to keep it at a low percentage. Provide other content to engage your followers. The marketing process is a slow and steady progression, but it will be worth it in the end.

Use Your Creative Brain-- Come up with creative ways to market your book. You know your audience and you should know what will catch their attention. If you are a blogger with a strong audience, maybe collaborate with other bloggers to prepare a blog tour. Or maybe start a giveaway that requires your audience to share a post on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook in order to be put in the drawing for the giveaway. This will help expand the reach of your posts and make one lucky fan really happy.

Join the Writer Community and Promote Others-- Karma works in mysterious ways, along with gratitude. If you have a writer friend, help them promote their new book, and they are more likely to scratch your back in the future. It does not even have to be anything extravagant, just a retweet on Twitter or a share on Facebook. The writing community is huge and can be very helpful.

Overall, instead of spamming your followers come up with creative content on social media or your blog that will engage your audience and lets you be you. These tricks will keep you from being considered an asshole while marketing your book.

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